Morale is low right now and senior EA figures are occupied and some have come under direct criticism, whether justified or not. In this environment, it’s difficult to communicate or express leadership. Only the CEA community health team seems to be taking the initiative, which must be very difficult and this is heroic.
In this situation there is often gardening of the online space that tends to be performed by marginal actors. LW and MIRI has been left mostly unscathed by the FTX disaster, and now, Eliezer and Rob B (professional communicator employed by MIRI) are highly active. In the sense of advancing their cause, that’s OK and natural. They are also helpful in tempering gardening attempts by other actors.
Note that I don’t think Eliezer’s representations, such downplaying his interactions with FTX (he might have been a regrantor and was probably more actively jockeying/seeking money than it seems, which is understandable) and other statements are entirely truthful or disinterested.
More importantly, the low opinion of Eliezer’s contributions is well known, relevant and should be communicated. (The quality of his output and MIRI was considered low, which is why they received relatively little funding and were unscathed[1]).
The fact they were not funded by a bad person is not a sign of virtue or quality, to say this in “LW speak”, see Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence.
As of writing, I want to point out that Eliezer’s comments, which are a probably strained digression to explain his original comment (and include speculation of a voting ring against him ???), has the following vote score.
My comments below this have:
This is not only not justifiable by content, this is literally suppressing criticism of a promoted EA figure on the EA forum.
Note that my comment is not policing or calling out private actual interpersonal conduct and seems well justified given the parent comment, as well as the wide range of topics discussed. A week ago, I think we all know that I would be voted down for factual, but off-color statements about SBF’s business practices.
Now, here, I make the additional, specific accusation that the existence of Eliezer Yudkowsky as a major public figure in EA is out of proportion to his contributions or his popularity in EA, and is partially supported by de facto organized coordination by a group of people on the LessWrong and Effective Altruism forums.
That is, my comment has been shared on say, private FB groups, Slack, Discord servers with the expected aim of managing this content.
I encourage examination of the view/vote graph and the origin of view/votes for my comment and possibly other content.
I am not attacking the cultures, views to help the world or ways of interpersonal relationships of people close to Eliezer. I do not want Eliezer to be harmed, or reduce his agency to contribute in the ways he wants to.
Eliezer is popular here. He founded LessWrong, MIRI and the AGI x-risk community. It’s not surprising you are getting downvoted for criticising his work (note I have not downvoted you, just explaining here).
Not just for criticism of his work but also for bringing this up in a totally unrelated context. If you’re (I mean the anonymous commenter) bothered by the way Eliezer dismisses concerns around “sex within orgs or close networks makes things messy and often ends badly,” I think that’s fair enough and I wouldn’t have downvoted your comment for it. But then adding that you think his intellectual contributions are also shit (or at least are seen as bad by people outside the movement) – that just seems a bit mean-spirited (besides IMO being wrong).
… I feel sad and uncomfortable about the commenters here criticizing Anonymous for “personally attacking” Eliezer, “bringing this up in a totally unrelated context”, being “mean-spirited”, etc.
It surely matters whether or not the intellectual contributions of someone in Eliezer’s reference class are bad, and in a world where they are bad, I care a lot more about learning that fact than about exactly which thread or subthread the discussion occurs on.
I’m glad you mention “besides IMO being wrong” at all. But where’s the objection that no supporting argument has been given? Where are the requests for specifics, so that it’s even possible to evaluate Anon’s claim by comparing notes about whether a given idea is a good intellectual contribution?
The problem with “More importantly, the low opinion of Eliezer’s contributions is well known” isn’t that it’s rude or off-topic; it’s that it’s maximally vague, more like a schoolyard taunt (“Oh, everyone knows X is lame, it’s so obvious I don’t even need to say why!”) than like a normal critique of someone’s intellectual output. If you think Eliezer’s wrong about tons of stuff, give some examples so those can be talked about, for goodness’ sake.
I agree that maximal vagueness is the much bigger issue with the intellectual criticism part of the comment than its unrelatedness and should also have said so. (And also via that vagueness implying that there’s a consensus where there IMO isn’t.)
I have, as it happens, a low opinion of Eliezer’s influence on EA (though I admit I’ve hardly read his stuff), but I still downvoted a generalized off-topic nasty personal attack.
This statement has been downvoted and removed from view. I’m pretty skeptical that is helpful.
Perhaps the ditch the “Your intellectual contributions are poorly regarded” thread; at best, it is unsupported & off-topic
Morale is low right now and senior EA figures are occupied and some have come under direct criticism, whether justified or not. In this environment, it’s difficult to communicate or express leadership. Only the CEA community health team seems to be taking the initiative, which must be very difficult and this is heroic.
In this situation there is often gardening of the online space that tends to be performed by marginal actors. LW and MIRI has been left mostly unscathed by the FTX disaster, and now, Eliezer and Rob B (professional communicator employed by MIRI) are highly active. In the sense of advancing their cause, that’s OK and natural. They are also helpful in tempering gardening attempts by other actors.
Note that I don’t think Eliezer’s representations, such downplaying his interactions with FTX (he might have been a regrantor and was probably more actively jockeying/seeking money than it seems, which is understandable) and other statements are entirely truthful or disinterested.
More importantly, the low opinion of Eliezer’s contributions is well known, relevant and should be communicated. (The quality of his output and MIRI was considered low, which is why they received relatively little funding and were unscathed[1]).
The fact they were not funded by a bad person is not a sign of virtue or quality, to say this in “LW speak”, see Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence.
I think this was downvoted in the first 10 seconds, I am bumping this so this gets read.
As of writing, I want to point out that Eliezer’s comments, which are a probably strained digression to explain his original comment (and include speculation of a voting ring against him ???), has the following vote score.
My comments below this have:
This is not only not justifiable by content, this is literally suppressing criticism of a promoted EA figure on the EA forum.
Note that my comment is not policing or calling out private actual interpersonal conduct and seems well justified given the parent comment, as well as the wide range of topics discussed. A week ago, I think we all know that I would be voted down for factual, but off-color statements about SBF’s business practices.
Now, here, I make the additional, specific accusation that the existence of Eliezer Yudkowsky as a major public figure in EA is out of proportion to his contributions or his popularity in EA, and is partially supported by de facto organized coordination by a group of people on the LessWrong and Effective Altruism forums.
That is, my comment has been shared on say, private FB groups, Slack, Discord servers with the expected aim of managing this content.
I encourage examination of the view/vote graph and the origin of view/votes for my comment and possibly other content.
I am not attacking the cultures, views to help the world or ways of interpersonal relationships of people close to Eliezer. I do not want Eliezer to be harmed, or reduce his agency to contribute in the ways he wants to.
Eliezer is popular here. He founded LessWrong, MIRI and the AGI x-risk community. It’s not surprising you are getting downvoted for criticising his work (note I have not downvoted you, just explaining here).
Not just for criticism of his work but also for bringing this up in a totally unrelated context. If you’re (I mean the anonymous commenter) bothered by the way Eliezer dismisses concerns around “sex within orgs or close networks makes things messy and often ends badly,” I think that’s fair enough and I wouldn’t have downvoted your comment for it. But then adding that you think his intellectual contributions are also shit (or at least are seen as bad by people outside the movement) – that just seems a bit mean-spirited (besides IMO being wrong).
… I feel sad and uncomfortable about the commenters here criticizing Anonymous for “personally attacking” Eliezer, “bringing this up in a totally unrelated context”, being “mean-spirited”, etc.
It surely matters whether or not the intellectual contributions of someone in Eliezer’s reference class are bad, and in a world where they are bad, I care a lot more about learning that fact than about exactly which thread or subthread the discussion occurs on.
I’m glad you mention “besides IMO being wrong” at all. But where’s the objection that no supporting argument has been given? Where are the requests for specifics, so that it’s even possible to evaluate Anon’s claim by comparing notes about whether a given idea is a good intellectual contribution?
The problem with “More importantly, the low opinion of Eliezer’s contributions is well known” isn’t that it’s rude or off-topic; it’s that it’s maximally vague, more like a schoolyard taunt (“Oh, everyone knows X is lame, it’s so obvious I don’t even need to say why!”) than like a normal critique of someone’s intellectual output. If you think Eliezer’s wrong about tons of stuff, give some examples so those can be talked about, for goodness’ sake.
I agree that maximal vagueness is the much bigger issue with the intellectual criticism part of the comment than its unrelatedness and should also have said so. (And also via that vagueness implying that there’s a consensus where there IMO isn’t.)
I have, as it happens, a low opinion of Eliezer’s influence on EA (though I admit I’ve hardly read his stuff), but I still downvoted a generalized off-topic nasty personal attack.